{"id":311424,"date":"2025-10-17T18:52:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T18:52:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/311424\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T18:52:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T18:52:14","slug":"colbert-roasts-ceo-david-ellison-on-national-boss-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/311424\/","title":{"rendered":"Colbert Roasts CEO David Ellison on National Boss\u2019 Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephen Colbert kicked off Thursday\u2019s edition of The Late Show with a jab at the CEO who fired him, declaring \u201clove\u201d for Paramount chief David Ellison on National Boss\u2019 Day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI join you tonight in a celebratory mood because, as you know, today is National Boss\u2019 Day,\u201d Colbert said while kicking off his opening monologue.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope you all treated your boss to their favorite gift\u2014two minutes of awkward chitchat until the elevator arrives. Remember to say your kids\u2019 names so they don\u2019t have to.\u201d<\/p>\n

The host then turned to look directly into the camera, where his face was framed by a graphic labeled \u201cDavid Ellison Appreciation Cam,\u201d accompanied by a superimposed graphic of the smiling CEO.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to take a moment to celebrate my new boss, Paramount CEO David Ellison,\u201d Colbert said with a deadpan expression. \u201cMr. Ellison, I love you.\u201d<\/p>\n

After pausing briefly to soak up some laughs, Colbert punctuated the moment with a wink at the audience. \u201cThat oughta buy us a couple more months,\u201d he quipped.<\/p>\n

Back in July, CBS abruptly announced it was axing The Late Show With Stephen Colbert next May, bringing to a close the long-running late-night show and Colbert\u2019s ten-year tenure as host along with it.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

CBS claimed the decision was \u201cpurely financial,\u201d citing dwindling ad revenues and a shifting media environment, despite The Late Show consistently ranking as the top-rated late-night show.<\/p>\n

Others, however, such as Jimmy Kimmel<\/a>, questioned CBS\u2019 claims about financial losses, instead suggesting that Colbert\u2014a longtime critic of President Donald Trump\u2014was axed just days before Paramount\u2019s $8 billion merger with Ellison\u2019s<\/a> Skydance Media was approved by the Trump administration.<\/p>\n

Prior to the merger, Colbert had also earned the ire of both Trump and his parent network by criticizing Paramount\u2019s decision to pay the president $16 million to convince him to drop a \u201cfrivolous\u201d defamation lawsuit<\/a> against 60 Minutes, which was widely interpreted as a bribe.<\/p>\n

\"NEWColbert’s show was axed by Paramount back in July. CBS Photo Archive\/CBS via Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cWhile I was on vacation, my parent corporation, Paramount, paid Donald Trump a $16 million settlement over his 60 Minutes lawsuit,\u201d Colbert said of the settlement at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended. And I don\u2019t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company, but just taking a stab at it, I\u2019d say $16 million would help,\u201d he quipped, before adding the correct term for the settlement in legal circles was \u201ca big fat bribe.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI absolutely love that Colbert got fired,\u201d Trump bragged on Truth Social after news of the cancellation was made public. \u201cHis talent was even less than his ratings. I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert! Greg Gutfeld is better than all of them combined, including the Moron on NBC who ruined the once great Tonight Show.\u201d<\/p>\n

Back in July, a network insider told The Independent<\/a> that while The Late Show had been \u201con the chopping block\u201d for a while due to its high production costs, it was widely accepted amongst staffers that the show was axed for political reasons.<\/p>\n

\u201cMany of us think this was part and parcel of the Trump shakedown settlement,\u201d they told the publication, with a second staffer telling Status News<\/a>, \u201cWhat better gift could the Ellisons give Trump than to get rid of Colbert and Stewart?\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Stephen Colbert kicked off Thursday\u2019s edition of The Late Show with a jab at the CEO who fired…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":311425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[171,13895,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-311424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-stephen-colbert","10":"tag-tv","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115391021014704408","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=311424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/311424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/311425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=311424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=311424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=311424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}